What's up guys?
So I was trying to think of our next big event. I know PUBG is one of our more popular games right now, but HOTS is still really going strong so I was trying to think of something that would accomplish both. With that in mind, I'd like to purpose our next event idea.(edited)

The idea of the event is pretty simple. Let's pick a date and time to get as many members online as possible, with a beverage (e.g. "juice") of your choice! It'll be an opportunity to meet some of our newer members, and hang out across multiple games. Should cause some laughs and be a blast! If you have any interest, please chime in below:Head to https://www.strawpoll.me/13290153 to vote!Once we receive enough votes, I'll formally announce the dates/times of the event.

Welcome to Ark! I'm going to take a brief few minutes and try to summarize the inner workings of the server, some of the features we've implemented, and the current rules. As always, this is a GIA community driven server, so your input is always welcome - however, until the rules have been official revised, they will have to be abided by.

Rules

-No arguing with admins/moderators in game. The forum or Discord is a place for friendly discussion - not in game chat
-Base raiding is allowed! The server offers ORP (offline raid protection) which will keep your base safe for a limited time ten minutes after your entire tribe logs off. This means there is a small window where players can raid your base. This is intentional so that players cannot abuse ORP. Your dinos are only 100% safe if they are on passive. If they are not on passive, but under the effects of ORP they do double damage and have double health - you will have to decide if leaving them on aggressive or passive is better for your tribe
-Absolutely no racism or bigotry. This is a zero tolerance community. One warning, then a ban.
-We like assholes. They keep the server interesting and give players someone to kill - however, extreme harassment isn't okay. This will be judged on a case-by-case basis and is typically only a problem if players are repeatedly and relentlessly harassed in chat.
-Cave building and all that other stuff that is normally "not allowed" is allowed. This isn't a "my little pony" server. However, building in caves takes increased damage.

We will be officially starting a new Ark server, based off of our custom server. This means that much like our most recent Ark server, we can expect great SSD performance and great FPS. It also means that we will not be entirely reliant on donations, so even if there's "lulls" in population and donations, we can keep the server running. If population outgrows us, I will look at purchasing another newer server.

Now, on to the reason for this thread; what the hay are we going to do with the server this time around?! Below I've outlined my current thoughts/opinions, which you will see have carried over from our other GIA run servers. I'd like to hear everyone's feedback.

Current Thoughts

-I don't typically care for heavily modded servers for a few reasons; They make it more challenging for users to connect, they reduce overall performance of the server, and opinions on the mods are like assholes - everyone has one.

-The Center for the map (lots of room, variety in biomes, and newish)

-20x Tame, 20x Gather, 5x XP (x50 is way too fast/high in my opinion, and I want it to be a grind, I just don't want to spend 23hrs taming a dino lol, and I like the 5x XP so that late-joining users will not be totally outmatched)

-I have mixed feelings about primitive plus. I really enjoy not have just metal for everything since it seems it is always overpowered. I always enjoy all the small things you can make with P+. On the other hand, I think it could detract from population since it will require a large download that people may not already have. Kind of torn here. One option would be to go with the standard version, and just place a limit on the amount of metal wall layers or something.

-I feel strongly about enabling offline raid protection. For those of us that have played on the Rust server, I'm going to try to find or develop a similar system. For example, user's bases are protected when they go offline. As soon as one tribe member is online, protection is disabled. I'd prefer to have it gradually reduce the protection; i.e. 12hrs offline = 90% protection, 24hrs offline = 80%, 48hrs offline = 50%, etc. This would need tweaking, but you get the idea.

Rules

-I'm pretty hard set on these rules, but of course I'm willing to listen to suggestions

-I'd prefer a mostly "everything goes" server, assuming that it follows GIA's general guidelines (e.g. no racism or bigotry, etc). Any rules that we actually have would preferably be plugin-enforced so it doesn't rely on an admin. This means the rules will be relatively minimal.

-Originally I was thinking "no extreme harassment of bases" (as in, no repeatedly raiding day after day) as a rule, but I think that having a bounty system would alleviate this completely. If someone keeps harassing you, you could simply put a large bounty on their base/dinos/head. Need some suggestions here.

I need a collective vote by today for the Playerunknown's Battlegrounds tournament. Here's how it will work: Starting Friday evening through Sunday evening any registered GIA members can send me or @moderator a screenshot of the 1st place win message. See below for screenshot instructions. While not required, it is encouraged to donate to the prize pool here http://GamingIA.com/forum. Whoever has the most wins by Sunday evening will win a Steam gift card for the value of the prize pool. The winner will be announced Monday. You are free to play in squads, doubles, or solo. A win is a win. If there is a tie the prize pool value will be split among players. We will need at least ten participants to make this worth while. Please format the screenshot entries like so:

This thread was created in order to clarify the qualifications needed to win the Battlegrounds giveaway on 03/10/2017-03/11/2017. All rules and details in the email apply.

First, if you have not entered to win the contest yet, you can do so via the newsletter button at the bottom, or Click Here. You are required to "follow" Zombievomitz. Anything else listed is an additional entry. You must be doing one of the following during the drawing to win:

You only need to be doing one of the options, not all of them. Doing more than one does not qualify you for additional entries. We look forward to seeing you there! If you have any questions, please address them here, or by PM with a moderator/admin in Discord. Good luck!

So, I recently replaced my mobo, ram and cpu with 32gb of Gskill 3000 DDR4 , ASUS Z170-a and I5 6600k. I was looking into possibly adding some SLI-ed when I noticed that this cpu only has 16 pci-e lanes. This made me worry that SLI-ing at 8x and 8x would make me lose a lot of performance. That is not the case because of the bandwith capabilities of pci-e 3.0. So if you're thinking of building a rig with an I5 and SLI, go for it!

Just thought I'd share with the other instinct folks at my work place (and those interested). A Nine Tails and Ivysaur was just spotted with in 200m of 44.895168, -123.008012! I'll be trying to grab one this afternoon as well.